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2010 National Book Award Finalist,
Young People's Literature

Paolo
Bacigalupi

Ship Breaker

Eisa Ulen: Though you are the author of two
other award-winning books, Ship Breaker is
your first YA novel. Why did you decide to write a science
fiction novel for younger readers?

Paolo
Bacigalupi: To be blunt, it's because adults
are a waste of oxygen. More and more, it seems that
young people are the only ones with any capacity to
make real choices about how they live and focus their
lives. We adults seem to be on drooling autopilot, paying
our mortgages and buying things like this: http://bit.ly/d4h5ac.
So at some point, you realize you're wasting your breath
on them. Young people will inherit all the costs and
consequences of the short-sighted and selfish decisions
we adults make, so really, if you're going to write
about sustainability and the environment, writing for
teens is the only decision that makes sense.

EU: You’ve said your father introduced you to
science fiction. Do you remember the first science fiction
narrative you ever read? What were some of your favorite
sci-fi books and movies when you were a kid?

PB:
Citizen of the Galaxy, by Robert Heinlein,
that was the first book. It was actually my grandfather's
copy, passed from him, to my father, to me. I'll probably
give it to my son in a couple more years. And he'll
probably look at me as if I've grown two heads and then
go play a video game. As for favorite movies... I loved
Star Wars, of course, and E.T. and
Battlestar Galactica, version 1.0, with all that
feathered hair. For my favorite books it was things
like Frank Herbert's Dune, and Walter Jon Williams'
Hardwired. Everything by William Gibson.
Also J.G Ballard. Ursula LeGuin... there are too many.

EU: Speculative Fiction is work that imagines
worlds other than our own, but often science fiction
imagines the world we will create if we don’t
manage our natural resources with greater regard for
the earth—and sea. Sustainability is clearly an
important concern of yours. Why is oil drilling, especially
its connection to Global Warming, a particular interest
of yours?

PB:
I'm interested
in oil (and to some degree, coal) because it's the source
of our prosperity, and it also seems to be our undoing.
Currently, the thing that fascinates me about oil drilling
actually has less to do with global warming, and more
to do with technologies like Deepwater Horizon (that
fabulous drill rig that blew up in the Gulf). Deepwater
Horizon was an ultra-deepwater drill rig, and it exists
because our basic run-of-the-mill drill rigs weren't
good enough to go after the scraps of oil that we're
currently hunting. Presumably after we finish with ultra-deepwater
drill rigs, we'll move on to super-ultra-deepwater drill
rigs, and oil will be more expensive than ever, and
then, at some point, the party will stop and it will
become impractical to keep hunting for oil, and we'll
leave our children holding the bag, and wondering why
everything was so fun in the good old days.

EU: Class also figures
prominently in the dystopia you present in Ship
Breaker. The line between those who work in poverty
and dangerous filth and those who are the wealthier
beneficiaries of all their body-breaking labor is clearly
drawn. Is it your hope that young adult readers of your
novel will think about the tremendous cost of our American
Standard of Living—a price that is often paid
by young people the same age that they are but who live
in other parts of the world?

PB:
A lot of people say that I write dystopian fiction,
but the truth is that all I do is steal from other parts
of our present. Mostly, I also have to make my fictionally
mangled worlds a lot nicer than the current reality.
No one really wants to know just how difficult it is
to work as a ship breaker (http://bit.ly/b684ak)
or what it's like to tear apart computers in Ghana (http://nyti.ms/9SxCok).
So you have to lighten it up a little bit, even when
you're trying to point to larger truths about how our
stuff gets created and where it goes to die.

EU: What would you say to readers who think
that the issue of Global Warming is overblown? How would
you respond to a reader who thinks that a future where
once-thriving cities are drowned by rising sea levels
would never happen?

PB: I've
got land in Louisiana that I'd love to sell them.

Eisa Nefertari Ulen
is the author of Crystelle Mourning,
a novel described by The Washington Post as
“a call for healing in the African American community
from generations of hurt and neglect.” She is
the recipient of a Frederick Douglass Creative Arts
Center Fellowship for Young African American Fiction
Writers and a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship.
Her essays, exploring topics ranging from Hip Hop to
Muslim life in America post-9/11 to contemporary Black
literature to the gap between the Civil Rights generation
and Generation X, have been widely anthologized. Nominated
by Essence magazine for a National Association
of Black Journalists Award, she has contributed to numerous
other publications, including The Washington Post,
Ms., Health, Heart & Soul, Vibe, The Source, The
Crisis, Black Issues Book Review, Quarterly Black Review
of Books, TheRoot.com, TheDefendersOnline.com, TheGrio.com,
and CreativeNonfiction.org. Ulen graduated
from Sarah Lawrence College and earned a master’s
degree from Columbia University. A founding member of
Ringshout: A Place for Black Literature, she lives with
her husband and son in Brooklyn. You can reach Eisa
online and read her blog at: www.EisaUlen.com.